'In God We Trust': Speaker Johnson's roaring speech to convince GOP rebels to vote for Trump Bill
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Hindustan Times
27 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Plot to kill MLA Sunil Shelke foiled in Pimpri-Chinchwad, SIT to be formed
The Pimpri-Chinchwad police have uncovered a conspiracy to murder Sunil Shelke, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA from Maval constituency. During a discussion in the state assembly on Friday, Shelke raised serious concerns through a calling attention motion, prompting the state government to take immediate action. The conspiracy came to light on July 26, 2023, when the anti-dacoity cell of the Pimpri-Chinchwad police carried out a major operation in Talegaon Dabhade based on a tipoff. (HT) Responding to the motion the same day, minister of state for home affairs Yogesh Kadam assured the House that a special investigation team (SIT) will be constituted to conduct an in-depth probe into the matter. Also Read | 'Treated like family': Lajpat Nagar double murder by helper shocks neighbours, co-workers The conspiracy came to light on July 26, 2023, when the anti-dacoity cell of the Pimpri-Chinchwad police carried out a major operation in Talegaon Dabhade based on a tipoff. Initially, two persons were arrested whereas a further probe led to the arrest of seven persons in total. All accused have a criminal history involving murder, attempt to murder, extortion, arson, and possession of illegal arms. The police recovered nine pistols, 42 live cartridges, machetes, and other deadly weapons from them. During interrogation, the accused revealed that the seized weapons were meant to be used in the planned murder of Shelke. The accused hail from Madhya Pradesh, Jalna, Vadgaon and Kalewadi and reportedly have no personal enmity with Shelke, raising suspicions of a powerful mastermind operating behind the scenes. Also Read | Meghalaya honeymoon murder accused Sonam Raghuvanshi's brother says won't hire a lawyer till... 'These accused come from poor backgrounds, yet they had access to expensive weapons and could afford top legal representation. Who is funding them? Who is the real mastermind behind the murder plot?' Shelke questioned in the assembly, pointing to a larger, more sinister conspiracy. Kadam informed the House that the accused had been in prison for a year-and-a-half and were later externed from Pune district for two years. Notwithstanding, they were found hiding in the district which Shelke highlighted as a serious lapse in enforcement. Also Read | Tandoor murder: 30 years on, echoes of a killing that shook Delhi's conscience Kadam assured that the matter is being taken seriously and if required, an SIT will be constituted to unearth the conspiracy. He said that information about a Madhya Pradesh-based arms supplier named 'Devaraj' has been shared with the concerned state government. However, after Shelke once again highlighted the serious nature of the conspiracy, Kadam assured that an SIT would be constituted to investigate the matter in detail. Kadam also asked Shelke to share whatever information the latter might have with the police so as to help take necessary action.
Deccan Herald
38 minutes ago
- Deccan Herald
The row over rolls revision: Voters' lists must be cleaned up
The Congress, which had imposed Emergency during its stint in power in the 1970s, is now stooping to a new low as an opposition party. The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, set a high moral standard in opposition politics and always lived up to the expectations of a democratic India. After the defeat in the assembly elections of Maharashtra, Haryana and the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Congress is questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission of India, which has a longstanding record of credibility in conducting free and fair elections in India. This is the time in India when the Opposition is constantly attacking all the pillars of democracy – legislature, executive, judiciary, and media – for its superficial politics and casting doubts on them. . The Opposition is even targeting India's foreign policy and the Indian Armed Forces. The target of all these allegations is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. It seems that the Opposition, which is continuously failing in politics, is now engaged in destroying the democratic tradition of India. It would be understandable if Pakistan or China took this approach to India, but, unfortunately, it is the Congress and other opposition parties, which resorted to this strategy, only to survive in politics. Now, the question is whether the opposition will be able to revive its fortune in politics by tearing apart the democratic dignity of India? Are the traditions, ethics and principles of India's democratic politics a thing of the past, thanks to the Opposition? Will the opposition counter the ruling party only by maligning the image of the impartial institutions and the pillars of democracy, like the ECI?.The row over rolls revision: Great Bihar disenfranchisement. As the ECI has started the revision of the voter list in Bihar, the Congress-led INDI Alliance has started attacking the prime minister, the government and, of course, the commission. Whereas the reality is that the ECI keeps revising its voter list at regular intervals every year. In India, elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, panchayats and municipal corporations are held every year in several phases. By-elections also keep happening in between. It is the important responsibility of the ECI to be fully prepared and ready for elections on time. It seems that frustrated by the repeated failure to stand against the BJP, the Congress is raising questions on the ECI in desperation and frustration, hence desires to create doubts among the masses to play politics. The complete accuracy of the voter list is essential for a successful voting process and to strengthen democracy. No one can deny the fact that a large number of fake voters are registered across the country. According to an estimate, there are at least 5000 to 25000 fake, or double or triple registered voters are enrolled in every assembly constituency of Bihar. This needs to be revised and corrected on a priority basis before the election is announced. Even within the same assembly constituency, a voter is registered at multiple places. It is necessary to clean up the voter lists and free the rolls of duplications. The BJP has been demanding that the ECI should link the electoral rolls with Aadhaar, so that the fraud in the voting system could be stopped completely. There should be a positive participation of all the political parties. The Opposition should encourage the process for strengthening democracy, rather than indulging in superficial politics through propaganda. It is the responsibility of all the political parties to strengthen the democratic institutions and cooperate with the ECI in making the electoral process completely free and fair. The Congress and the rest of the INDI Alliance are pretending to make a political move, but are, in reality, trying to weaken democracy in India by hitting at the pillars of democracy.. (The writer is presently the National General Secretary of the BJP's OBC Morcha.)
Deccan Herald
an hour ago
- Deccan Herald
Donald Trump and his transactional presidency
If, shortly, you read that Donald Trump has managed to annex Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Palestine, you should not in the least bit be surprised. After all, Trump, no original thinker, has been following in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the US, and Adolf Hitler – two men for whom territorial expansion through military might, economic blackmail, and genocidal practices was perfectly acceptable. Thucydides, the 5th century BC historian and author of The History of the Peloponnesian War, famously wrote, 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.' It is only a matter of time before Trump's bullying tactics will result in the whole world, save China, giving in to his Trump's territorial expansion plans to come true, the new US would be the largest country in the world, and its population density would go down almost 50%. Annexing Canada and Greenland will add 4.8 million square miles and 43 million people to the American Empire. The latter figure would only be 33 million if one takes into account Trump's plans to deport over ten million 'illegal' immigrants, almost all of whom are non-white, to various third countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and South Sudan, which would result in a 30% increase in the combined population density of these countries. Contrast this with the 100-year Pax Britannica period, 1815 to 1914, when Britain added around 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people to its is an ulterior motive behind Trump's plan to grab Canada and Greenland. These two countries have enormous mineral resources, especially rare earth minerals that are essential in powering electric vehicles, data centres, and consumer/military electronic products. Currently, the US relies on China for its supply of rare earth minerals, a state of affairs that challenges its hegemonic status in the stated intention to grab Palestine and expel its occupants to parts unknown is reminiscent of what President Andrew Jackson (1829-37), labelled 'King Andrew', achieved through the genocidal Indian Removal Act of 1830. The act, which authorised the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories, resulted in the militarily forced displacement, by foot, of over 100,000 native Americans (thousands died along the way) from the southeastern states to the less desirable central regions. The native Americans were granted US citizenship only in 1924 through an act of Congress; however, they could not vote – a right that was conferred upon them only in 1965. In his second term as President, Trump has been actively pursuing the elimination of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, and, unfortunately, he seems to be succeeding..A major cause of World War II was a wrongly perceived need for more living space ('Lebensraum'), Hitler's desire to expand Germany's borders to the east. Hitler was motivated by the so-called Septemberprogramm, a memorandum of German war goals in 1914 which proposed economic and military dominance through territorial expansion in Europe and the colonies in 'Make America Great Again' is no different from the British Empire's rationale for justifying the Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60 between Qing-dynasty China and Britain – two wars that were more about European mercantile interests forcing China to legalise opium, thereby protecting an illegal and very profitable opium trade by East India Company to overcome a huge trade deficit. The US has a current trade deficit of $295 billion with most punitive of Trump's latest tariffs have been directed at China and many developing and less developed economies in the Global South, in particular Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar – countries which are easily susceptible to being economically and militarily coerced by the US into forming alliances against China. Just recently, Vietnam was coerced into allowing Trump to set up his first golf course in the country. The latest US Defence Intelligence Agency's report characterised China, not Pakistan, as India's principal adversary. If India is forced into an alliance with the US against China, it will end up as collateral damage, much like Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam keeping with his goal of attaining national purity by getting rid of 'undesirable' populations, Trump has dismantled all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) programmes set up by previous presidents and shut off their funds. Eager to please Trump and ensure their government contracts are not impacted, private companies and universities have followed suit by cancelling their own DEI programmes. Trump and his MAGA followers are committed to making America white again, a hearkening back to a pre-civil rights, slave-holding America. Were you aware that the grandfather of Trump acolyte Elon Musk moved from Canada to South Africa because he preferred to live in racist white South Africa, and that some of Trump's forebears actively collaborated with elements of the Third Reich? As the saying goes, 'the apple never falls far from the tree'..Martin Luther King's dream of his children 'one day living in a nation where they are not judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character' is far from being realised. Trump's slogan of making America great again is only about making America a right-wing white Christian nation and spreading, through military might and economic domination, this unipolar message across the globe. The unipolar message, greatly amplified by social media and Big Tech, does not resonate with China. Pax Britannica culminated in the First World War. Will Pax Americana follow in its footsteps?.History teaches us that trade wars invariably end up being shooting wars. A third Opium War is in the offing, and it is not going to be pretty..(The writer is a retired professor; he has written extensively and presented lectures on the societal and geo-political implications of technology)
